Salvador Massacre Recalls U.S. Role

Published: February 20, 1996

To the Editor:

"Where Countless Died in '81, Horror Lives On in Salvador" (front page, Feb. 12) fails to mention a significant fact. Those soldiers responsible for this massacre of hundreds of unarmed men, women and children at El Mozote, El Salvador, were trained at the United States Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga.

The United Nations Truth Commission Report on El Salvador, released in March 1993, reported that 12 officers were responsible for this massacre. A complete listing of all Salvadoran soldiers trained at the School of the Americas, provided to this office through the Freedom of Information Act, revealed that 10 of these 12 officers trained at the school.

In fact, 73 percent of those soldiers cited for atrocities in the truth commission report, including the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, the rape and murder of four United States churchwomen and the massacre of six Jesuit priests, were trained at the School of the Americas.

The school is not only costly in human lives. According to the Pentagon, the yearly operating budget for this military school's training of Latin America's soldiers is $18.4 million -- a disgrace when budgets for schools for our children are being cut.

Representative Joseph P. Kennedy 2d of Massachusetts has introduced a bill calling for the closing of the School of the Americas. Support of this legislation can save lives in Latin America and money here at home.